US Postal Service asks for nearly maximum rate increase possible for periodicals

Morning Brief: Adobe updates Content Viewer app, but holiday today in the U.S. will limit the number of updates and new apps to appear in the Apple App Store

The price publishers will pay to distribute their print publications through the USPS will increase by 1.965 percent. The most the service is allowed to raise the rate is 1.966 percent – so, you see, this is the idea of the postal service being kind to publishers.

The rate increase was posted late Thursday afternoon. Dead Tree Edition, which blogs on the print publishing industry, reminded readers that the request came in a day before new inflation figures (which came in essentially flat).

The rates would stay the same for the Forever stamps consumers buy. But the other rate increases are intended to bring in about $900 million in additional revenue, with $400 million in the 2015 financial year.

“Today’s action is the latest in a series of steps the Postal Service has taken as part of a comprehensive approach to achieve financial stability,” the USPS said in its announcement. “By growing volume, revenue and contribution, the Postal Service will continue to meet America’s mailing and shipping needs well into the future. While improving efficiency in streamlining its network and seeking legislative changes, the Postal Service must address an outdated business model.”

Adobe released an update to its Adobe Content Viewer app this weekend for bug fixes. But there will probably be few other updates or new apps released today due to the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday in the U.S. today.

The update brings the app up to version v32.4.2, but the Adobe DPS help page does not current list any changes for this version. The previous update added support for 64-bit iOS apps.

A number of media observers were surprised to see The New York Times give space to Marine Le Pen, president of the right-wing National Front party in France. The column was used to criticize the French government’s response to the Charlie Hebdo attacks, stating that the attack was not so much an attack by terrorists but an attack by Islamic fundamentalism.

In the past, the views of Le Pen would have been considered too extreme for publication in the NYT.

Not reported, however, were the view’s of Le Pen’s father, the former head of the National Front, Jean-Marie Le Pen. Mr. Le Pen told Le Monde in an interview that he believed that the Charlie Hebdo attack may have been the work of an “intelligence agency”.

“The entire operation (of the attackers) bears the signature of secret services,” Le Pen claimed. “Of course, we have no evidence. I’m not saying that the French authorities are behind this crime, but they may have allowed it to take place.”